Friday, November 16, 2012

Miguel Cabrera vs Mike Trout

I weighed in on my vote for MVP a few weeks ago with my ballot. I chose Mike Trout. My father said Miguel Cabrera deserves the MVP, his reasoning was that Trout's team did not make the playoffs and Cabrera's team did. The Triple Crown was not mentioned, just the performance of the teams. My father also used his vote to bash the Red Sox by saying "you have to be one lousy team to not even make the playoffs in this day and age". A valid point.

Mitch Albom also takes the Cabrera side but does it by calling out all of us stat geeks in his piece today.  I have no issue if someone wants to vote for Cabrera. I am the same guy who gets livid every time I think about Ted Williams hitting .406 and winning the Triple Crown and NOT winning the MVP in 1941. However, Albom's take on the new stats in baseball is a joke. I would attack him more but Josh Herzenberg did a much better job of that. Here is Josh's take on Albom's column.

I'm a Division I college baseball player who spends 6 days a week on the field and in the weight room. I've been playing baseball since I was 5 and have made the joke that I have spent more hours on the diamond than I have in bed since that age.

I believe you, and every other sportswriter who thinks Miguel Cabrera was more valuable than Mike Trout, are an absolute moron. 

Economists find new, more accurate ways to measure fiscal trends in our country each day, and they are heralded for their work.

Political analysts that can accurately forecast a trend in popularity or voting using new statistical measures (there's a guy named Nate Silver who is pretty popular nowadays if you've never heard of him) are heralded for their work.

Doctors and scientists who find new ways to keep people healthy, whether it be cures or vaccines or

 whatever, are heralded for their work.

Did you see a recurring trend in my last three sentences? I did. The word "new" was emphasized.

Tell me, why can't baseball embrace "new" ways to properly analyze a player's output and value to his team and to the game? Why are these measures suddenly shunned and ridiculed like some sort of conspiracy theory or plague?

I hope for the sake of myself and my peers that you never leave the city of Detroit and begin writing for a publication where I live. Because I couldn't bear to read more of your snide, obnoxious, ignorantly blind commentary.

Mike Trout was the most valuable player in the American League in 2012, by a landslide. Its morons like you that can't see past your stone aged blinders to recognize it that taint the way the game is perceived.

I doubt you'll read this post. After all, like I said in my first paragraph, I'm just a computer geek who hides behind Microsoft Excel and never sets foot on a baseball field.



  1. Fine, call people idiots, but please make your case while you do so.

  2. John,

    Thanks for your comment. The idiot remark was not made by me it was a comment by a poster after reading the Mitch Albom column. I apologize for not making that more clear